THE SUPREME GIFT 



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ARLO BATES 


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Seta Kappa «f Tufts Ciolz^cs Msr 
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THE SUPREME GIFT 



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ARLO BATES 



Delivered at the annual meeting of the Pm 
Beta Kappa of Tufts College May 
lo, 191 1, and now privately printed to 
serve as a Christmas Greeting to friends. 



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The Supreme Gift 



I 

/^IFT-BEARING cometh bounteous Life. 
^^ She brings 

To childhood dear, unreasoning days, 
Cadenced of angels' wings 
Adown their sweet amaze, 
When but to be is joy; 
To youth the prodigal she lavish flings 
Rich treasure for his wasting or employ; 
Then to the man gives power, glory, gold; 
Conquest and kingship with their pomp and pride; 
Or nobler gifts: hopes that through all abide, 
Home's blessings manifold; 
Beauty and love, those jewels twain 
Of which the very gods are fain; 
The thrill of fatherhood, which takes man's breath 
For ver>' awe, as if he had slain death; 
Or sorrow's sacramental cup, whose wine 
Is token of man's heritage divine. 
Unweariedly Life still bestows. 
Ungrudgingly her bounty flows: 



Till oft man asks, were his the choosing, 
Were his the taking or refusing 
From all her gifts of weal or pain, 
In which he wins best good or gain. 



II 
TXTHAT is the highest bounty Life bestows, 
^ ^ Best of all gifts man's earthly being knows? 
Not joy, though all dead laughter woke 

To echo mirthfulness divine, 
With zest of youth and song and vine. 

The soul of pleasure to invoke: 
Like sparkle on a wave joy dances, 
While swift the swallowing gloom advances. 
Nor best of all is wealth, or power. 
Or fame's flame-blinding hour; 
For who with Midas-touch, or might whose stroke 
Hath humbled all mankind to bear his yoke. 
Or who that hears honor's acclaim 
Make earth reecho with his name. 
Shall this earth's richest treasure deem; 
Who for this barter all 
Of good that might befall. 
And count it of Life's gifts the gift supreme? 



Ill 

'VJOR yet is beauty best that Life concedes. 

-'■^ Not beauty, though the evening star 

Through dusk of violet heavens glancing 

Broods on its pictured shape entrancing 

Where purple-black among its reeds 
The pond lies smooth and far. 

Not beauty, though the quickened marble keep 
Down dulling centuries the thrill it caught 
When some Hellenic hand enraptured wrought 

With godlike touch a god, and woke from sleep 
The stone's imprisoned loveliness; 

Not beauty, though our sense knew the caress 
Of all lost fairness of dead summer days, 
Of all hushed melody of bygone lays, 
All wonder of those women fair of old 
Who for the world itself their favor sold. 

None of all these an answering pulse may waken 

When anguish numbs, or death with fingers cold 
Dear love has taken. 
Sorrow may bring the pride of beauty low; 
Life's noblest gift fails not in hours of woe. 

IV 

AND lo\e, enkindling love, which bards have sung 
"*• ^ Till down the ages swells the song, — 



Though neither lute, nor string, nor tongue, 

But does love's worth most grievous wrong; 
For love alone when Paradise was lost 
Could man live on, enduring all life cost; — 
For love alone an exile's pain prolong. 

Prisoned in consciousness, the soul must dwell 
Shut in forever, and its solitude. 

May none partake; only love to its cell 
May softly steal, and call in murmuring tone, 
And yearning brood 
Till it forgets its prison lone. 
Divine is lo\e, a gift so passing great 
It challenges the ruthless might of fate: 
Yet more than love is that which makes love good, — 
The impulse to be worthy, the desire 
To rise to heights ideal; to aspire 
To some high possible, half understood, 
There with hands stainless to lift up, 
There with pure lips, cleansed as with fire, 
To drink with love the sacramental cup. 
Divine is love, yet is that guerdon best 
Whose worth ennobles all the rest. 



N 



OR yet is knowledge the most royal gem 
Man wears in his soul's anadem. 



The wisest mage 
On mysteries of the ages pouring, 
Nature's most secret deeps exploring, 

For all his yearning sage 
Finds not the secret clue 
Which shall interpret Fate's dread page. 
Time's vast hour through 
The earth flees down the void, nor yet outspeeds 
The star-emblazoned riddle which transcends 
All human lore; which dulls man's wistful creeds 
With doubt which never ends. 
All space 
Flames with the questions "What?" and "Why?" 
V/hile Wisdom veils her face, 
And silent in her place 
Hath no reply. 

VI 
VTET facing that dread, star-writ scroll, 
■*" Man may not wholly yield to fear. 
Stronger than doubt, within his soul 

One impulse burns with radiance clear: 
A quenchless longing for immortal good; 
A quick desire for goal yet unattained ; 
One passion deathless, howsoe'er withstood; 



One striving holy, howsoe'er profaned; 
One inly urge that pricks man on to grow, 
As springs the lotus from Nilotic slime 
Through topaz floods toward golden sun to climb 
And bloom in chaliced snow. 

VII. 

'TpIME wastes like lapsing wave; 
■*• And 'now' so soon is 'then'; 
Like wind-flowers fading on a grave, 
The ways, the wars, the woes of men 
Begin and end in naught. 
Only change may abide; 
The famed are the forgotten; man's pride 
Breaks like a bubble; man's thought 
Blooms, like the rose, only on dust of death- 
Yet though all else should fail. 

Glory dissolve like breath. 
Strength prove of no avail. 
Love before sorrow pale; 
Though life be base or all disconsolate, 
Never is wholly lost that inward fire: 
Lives in the heart some flame, some spark innate, 
In changing shapes, — now hope and now desire, 
Now faith with ecstasy illuminate, 
Now courage death to dare; 



If bright or dimmed in its dgreee, 
Faint, darkened, wavering though it be. 
This of the soul of all things is man's share,- 
Boon best beyond compare. 



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VIII. 
>R proved is manhood's worth 
Not by the things of earth, 
Not by the laurel to the victor given; 
His is the hero-soul. 
Though he reach not the goal, 
Who hath most nobly in the contest striven. 

Though fate to him no wreath assign, 
Though swift oblivion will make men forget 
The name upon his tombstone set. 
One prize pure from all stain 
His manhood may attain, — 
Still to aspire in discontent divine. 

IX. 
rpOR the spirit of man should be flame, 
^ That must mount, that must leap, — if from shame 
Of the pyre of outcast unclean 
Supplicating the far blue serene; 
Or if storm-torn on sentinel-height 
It torch tidings of fear down the night; 



Or if watched by pale vestals at prayer 
Vows ecstatic it heavenward bear; — 

Still starward upspringing in might. 

So the spirit of man must aspire 

Still to rise, still to soar, still to burn; 
Like the tongues Pentecostal in fire 
Unceasingly upward to yearn. 

X 

'X^HIS mighty longing frees man from the thrall 
"^ Of time and sense, and makes him lord of all. 
This was the germ which stirred primeval dust, 
Immortal still, although to ruin fall 
The constellations in their march august. 
Older this aspiration than hoar time; 
Young will it be when time hath been forgot: 
When broken is that dream of God sublime 

Men call the universe, and earth is not, 
This flame unquenchable shall still endure, 

Creation's essence pure. 
While man is man his heart should be 
An altar consecrate on which it glows. 
All else may fail; unto eternity 
This radiance supreme no wasting knows. 
This, Life's best gift, shall make secure 
Against all malice of assailing Fate, 
Man's selfhood dauntless and inviolate! 



